The sanctuary movement is getting a lot of press, but it’s not new. In fact, there’s been a sanctuary movement for years.

Of course, back then, the progressive leftists that are so upset today weren’t fazed in the least. After all, back then, the sanctuaries were harboring illegal immigrants rather than protecting the Second Amendment. Back then, it was all good in their minds. Screw enforcing laws they viewed as unjust, even if the constitution does grant the authority to the federal government to decide on issues like naturalization and, by implication, immigration.

Now, though, it’s a problem.

The editorial board over at the Washington Times took issue with that.

Some on the left are angry, if not apoplectic, that conservatives are turning the tables on them and co-opting one of their own tactics against liberal policies. But turnabout, as they say, is fair play: Self-styled “progressives,” it seems, aren’t the only ones who can unilaterally decide which laws they will or will not enforce and/or comply with.

Across the country, a growing number of county sheriffs and other law enforcement officials, as well as other city and county officials, are announcing their refusal to enforce unduly restrictive gun laws that they believe run afoul of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. They’re declaring their jurisdictions “Second Amendment sanctuaries.”

If liberal “sanctuary” cities, counties and even states defiantly refuse to cooperate fully with federal immigration laws with respect to the detention and deportation of illegal aliens, then their objections should fall on deaf ears when other towns, cities and counties won’t go along when liberal governors and Democrat-controlled legislatures enact strict gun-control measures.

…

The liberal editorial board of The Washington Post in a fit of pique decried the actions of Virginia’s Second Amendment sanctuary counties in a Nov. 30 editorial, “Virginia’s gun lobby wants to be above the law,” hysterically likening the movement to “vigilantism” and “frontier justice.”

In this cockeyed view, the “gun lobby” includes elected county sheriffs and boards of supervisors in Appomattox, Charlotte, Campbell, Carroll, Dinwiddie, Giles, Lee, Patrick, Pittsylvania and Roanoke counties. It would also include Carroll, Cecil and Harford counties in Maryland, as well as 25 of the 33 counties in New Mexico and nearly two-thirds of the counties in Illinois. Even on the Left Coast, large swaths of Washington and Oregon are Second Amendment sanctuaries. Are we really to believe that they are all run by “vigilantes” imposing “frontier justice?”

To the contrary, typical is the resolution adopted Nov. 18 in Appomattox County. It commits officials to fight “through legal action, the power of the appropriation of public funds, and the right to petition for redress of grievances, and the direction of the law enforcement and judiciary of [the county] to not enforce any unconstitutional law.”

Honestly, go read the whole thing. I can’t imagine any regular reader of this site not being absolutely thrilled with what they wrote.

Frankly, I agree with it.

Look, every argument anti-gun voices want to make can equally be applied to immigration sanctuaries. The Washington Times notes one gun grabber arguing the idea of law enforcement not enforcing certain laws as “appalling,” yet what else do you describe efforts in cities like San Francisco and New York where they refuse to enforce immigration laws?

Now, I’m not going to get into immigration policy here. This isn’t the place for it, after all.

However, I’ll note that while the constitutional authority on immigration is vague, there’s no such ambiguity regarding gun laws. “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the people’s right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” There’s no ambiguity as to who has authority for what there. It says our rights should not be touched.

So yeah, these sanctuary counties are better based on constitutional law than immigration sanctuaries.

It’s only too bad the anti-gunners refuse to acknowledge that fact.